Mileage: 8.4 miles RT from trailhead (longer depending on where you can park in the winter)
Elevation Gain/Highest: 1940ft/4508ft (trailhead to lake)
Map: Green Trail Sloan Peak No 111
Favorite Eats After Hike: Mirkwood Public House, Glorybucha Microbrewery, River Time Brewing, or just Pack A Cooler. You can learn more about these places in my Must Hike Must Eat Eating Out Guide.
Find out current conditions and as always, practice Leave No Trace. Pretty please. EDIT: As of January of 2023, Forest Road 23 is washed out at mile 4 making this hike not reasonably accessible. You can access it by a different route found here.
Hike Details:
This is a trail not for the faint of heart as most of it is currently unmaintained. But if you want something with a little adventure and lots of solitude it could be for you! The trail has a very gradual gain but you will be pushing through plenty of bramble to reach an isolated alpine lake teeming with life. I hiked this first as a snowshoe and even thought we did not make the lake, it was a full day of “fun”. You can read the following trip reports and decide for yourself if this hike/snowshoe is something you are up for!
My Hikes:
8/23/2020, my GAIA
A few quick details first. This is for the Crystal Lake Trail off FR 27 from FR 23 off the Mountain Loop Highway, NOT FR 2703 from the Suiattle River Road (FR 26). It is less than 9 miles in from the MLH and took us 25 minutes despite how bad the road is. It is also less about what type of car you drive and more about how much you care for your paint job (my husband cares 0%). The round trip distance from the trailhead to the lake is 8.4 miles. Also, neither Green Trails Sloan Peak No 111 (2002), GAIA GPS nor Caltopo have the trail mapped correctly for current conditions.
On a bright December day in 2016, I got the idea to go for a snowshoe with my husband despite the temperature being in the teens. After looking in Dan Nelson’s Snowshoes of Washington book, I settled on Crystal Lake. I know a few of you are laughing now, there is a reason there are only two reports for this snowshoe here on WTA. One is mine and the other is from a guy who was following my blog at the time. Neither of us made it.
I had always meant to go back and run a track so that we could attempt another snowshoe. Knowing what I know now, that may never happen.
We arrived at the trailhead for Crystal/Meadow around 9:30 am after stopping at the privy at the White Chuck Bench trailhead. There were about 7 cars parked but no people. The drive in was not bad and there were surprisingly few people car camping along it. We ran into two older gentlemen in a truck with Alabama plates who were looking for where the road crossed the White Chuck again. One of them grew up in Darrington but it must have been awhile since he’d been home. My guess is he was looking for where FR 23 used to head towards Kennedy Hot Springs before all the damage of 2003/2006.
Starting up the Meadow Mountain Trail, the decommissioned road is still mostly gravel and short grass. Wide and open, sunlight filtered through easily. I had forgotten, but the road goes up, then down and back up again (the last thing you want on the way out). This section has seen trailwork, trees have been cut from the trail. Where it opens up into views of the valley, you can look back and see Pugh and Spring Mountains off in the distance.
The junction for Crystal Lake was reached at 1.45 miles and 10:15 am and we hung a left. Here is where the overgrowth happens. You can still tell it is an old road but the foliage has encroached greatly. If there was a campsite at one point, it is not obvious now. Plenty of small trees have fallen across the trail and the brush will get the legs wet. Manageable, though. A few tasty salmonberries and huckleberries to munch on. Only one thimbleberry. 🙁
According to GAIA and Caltopo, there is another left hand junction around .8/.9 miles in that leaves the road and climbs up at an angle towards Crystal Lake. Nope. It appears as if there was a slide down the ravine here at some point (maybe during those famous storms) and the resulting damage obscured the junction. The current trail swings out to the outslope around the talus, alder and fireweed before coming back to the lower road and continuing. From here on, the overgrowth is much worse.
This area is pretty, though, and open to the surrounding ridgelines. It is most likely this was our turnaround point back in 2016 due to the time it took to maneuver all the overgrowth in our snowshoes despite the snow. It was really slow going to avoid all the tree wells and tripping hazards.
According to my (old) Green Trails, around 2.5 miles there is a switchback and the trail leaves the road. Nope. If there was, you can’t find it now because of overgrowth. What really happens is that the trail follows the old road as far as it can and then continues to the drainage of Crystal Lake. It undulates occasionally over the humps built to close the road off to traffic and there is plenty of Devil’s Club and muck where streams run off the slope.
At 3820 feet and 3.5 miles in, the trail then makes 350 feet of gain in less than a quarter mile up along the creek to “T” with the original trail to Crystal Lake at 4170 feet. My ex-wildfire fighting hubby says it may have been a firebreak at one point but that description doesn’t really match what conditions are now. Think Index Town Wall or Minotaur steep, not quite Spade Lake. It is overgrown at first but then relatively clear to the “T”. Plenty of duff and ankle twisting rocks, though. If you keep an eye out from all your huffing and puffing, there is a pretty waterfall about half way up.
Looking back at the original trail where it once descended, it is obvious why it was abandoned over time by folks coming back from Crystal. It is choked with young trees and would not make any sense to take. I am SO glad we did not attempt to find it back in 2016, it would have been so much worse than staying on the old road and I assume that is what others did over time, too.
Turning right, the steep ascent became more gradual and we reached the Glacier Peak Wilderness boundary at 4 miles. There are some good sized trees along this section and more muck. The trail soon opened up to a marshy meadow that is the outlet for Crystal, we crossed it and arrived at the lake at 4.2 miles and 3 hours in.
There was a family of 3 on the west side of the lake so we crossed back over the outlet to the north side (left). We found the established campsite and the trail heading up to Circle Peak. Shortly after, the family showed up where we were and headed up that trail leaving the lake to just us. We crossed back over to the west side again where we spent the next hour enjoying the lake in solitude.
Like other folks have reported, the tadpoles are prolific! The fish were jumping all over the water’s surface, no skeeters but the black flies were landing. Huge dragonflies! It was quiet and peaceful.
There was evidence of multiple campsites (fire rings) on this side but the terrain is marginal, mostly on the marshy grass too close to the lake or up higher where the heather/ground blueberry is slowly growing back. The only true durable surface is the one on the north side of the lake.
We found the “privy” (look for an old wooden sign with the moon/outhouse), nailed high on a ring of trees on a small rising west of the large grassy field. It is mostly a wood rimmed large hole at this point, but it has to be better than the TP blooms we saw amongst the heather.
As we were getting ready to leave, two hikers came down from the Circle Peak Trail and over to where we were. They had hiked in from FR 2703 and had come over to Crystal the day before to go swimming. At some point they had lost their car keys, everyone’s nightmare! Luckily, no clothing was involved in said swim so zero chance the keys were at the bottom of the lake. We helped them look for a bit before making our way back down the trail.
Our return trip was uneventful and only took 2 hours. We passed two more people on the Meadow Mtn Trail and were back to the car at 3:20 pm. With two people in the parking lot, a total of 9 all day for a sunny Sunday is not bad in the time of COVID. Driving back, we agreed it would be a very long, physical day to make it to Crystal Lake when there was enough snow to cover all that bramble if parking had to happen back down on FR 23. But, who knows when we may be in the mood for a little Type A fun?
12/17/2016
You will find pictures for this report on Reaching Our Turn Around Point.
It is the middle of December and I am still having a hard time adjusting my expectations for how much I can do on a day hike (snowshoe). I had wanted to do this hike back in October but ended up somewhere else instead so when I saw it in the snowshoe book I thought I would give it a go. It was less than 14 miles in the book…
We left the house at 7am and made it up the Mountain Loop in good time (after a stop at Starbucks). The road was relatively clear with a little ice on the sides but when we got to FR 23, it was snow covered.
We took the turn and decided to put chains on because although my bf has 4 wheel drive, he has city tires. No reason to get stuck if we don’t have to. A few minutes later were headed along the mostly flat river road but stopped again about 4 minutes up the road for a Mazda (with chains) coming back down. He said he had made it to the TH (barely) but was reluctant to leave his car because of the snow forecast (overnight) and had backed out one whole mile to turn around and come all the way back down to the Mountain Loop junction to leave his car and THEN WALK BACK UP! When we told him we were heading to the same trail, he asked if we would be willing to give him a ride. No problem, we said.
So driving back and letting him hop in, we continued down the FR 23 and over the bridge at 5 miles and the parking area and privy at the White Chuck River Trail. This was how far he had made it, not the TH for Crystal Lake as I had hoped. We were able to continue up the road to the junction with FR 27 but it was here with the hairpin turn that we knew we would be parking the car and starting our trek. Our fellow hiker, Josh (who was overnighting it), headed up to begin and we finished packing up for the walk.
We started up the road at a little after 10am with our snowshoes strapped to the packs as the snow was not too deep but slick and crunchy. We both had spikes, too, but never used them. This section of the route is still the road and would be for the 2.5 miles until the junction with the Meadow Mountain trail. There were plenty of elegantly adorned trees and near frozen waterfalls.
There was one section before the first hairpin turn that the slope was lined with rows and rows of icicles.
I had already put my snowshoes on by this point but my bf didn’t put his on until we made it the trail junction. Here you can continue on to Rat Pass or turn right to head to Crystal Lake or Meadow Lake.
The snow gets measurably deeper here and for the next 1.5 miles it was still old road but narrower and covered with many more downed trees making it prudent to watch our step to prevent postholing at a branch over the trail. I just love when the weight of the snow bends the boughs over the trail like a snare that drops that cold gift on you as you try to walk under.
We passed Josh (the only other person we saw today) as he stopped to decide if he had missed the trail junction to the lake. There is a section here on the trail where you go DOWN a bit which typically makes you wonder if you took a wrong turn. We thanked him for breaking trail thus far and told him we would take a turn. The snow today was so light and powdery, but I couldn’t decide if this was better than wet, sloppy snow that loaded itself on your snowshoes and adds weight to every step. The loose stuff means nothing tampers down and my bf joked it was worse than when we were walking on the Great Sand Dunes this summer! You felt like you were losing more ground than gaining at times.
It was already 1pm when we reached the sign for the Crystal Lake Trail. We stopped for a snack and debated how much further we wanted to go today. Josh caught up and chatted for a bit with the same question. I guessed about 2 more hours, reluctant to say that we wouldn’t make it to the lake. I knew the next mile or so up the trail would be on old road but from there it would be overgrown trail covered in snow. Navigation would be necessary. Josh continued on, hoping to make a good distance before setting up his camp. We decided to see how far we could get, already knowing we would be hiking out in the dark at this point.
The trail continued to narrow but the grade was easy. After being in the trees for most of this trek, you do break out and have views of the creek valley as you make your way along. The temperatures were in the teens today and the snow was making those delicate crystals on the mounds of snow we were drudging through and we couldn’t but stop and try and capture them on camera with varying success.
At 2:30pm and a little over 3500ft with no hairpin in the trail to tell us we had left the old road and were heading up on the unmaintained section of the trail we opted to make this our turn around point. Josh was a bit a head of us and said he would continue a little more and then make camp while he still had daylight.
We wished him luck on the rest of his trip. I sat for just a bit to eat warm food from my thermos and my bf heated water for his lunch. It was so cold I couldn’t sit long and stomped around while he got his meal ready to keep my toes from freezing further. It was 3pm when we began to walk back down the trail. We already had our headlamps on in anticipation.
We did make better time on the way down not only due to elevation loss but the snow was tampered slightly. We also knew were the postholing would happen and could avoid it a bit better on the way down. This time of the day is one of my favorites, the way the waning sunlight falls on the snow.
It was dark by the time we were back on FR 27 but this wasn’t our first time snowshoeing after the sun had gone down. Our first snowshoe together on Segelsen Ridge ended with headlamps, as well. Only this time, the snow as in mush better condition not having had snowmobiles on it to create big tripping hazards (ruts). By the time we reached the car it was 6pm and 16 degrees.
Everything we had was frozen: water bottles, the ice inside our gaiters and even some of the food in my pack. Needless to say, the first thing on our mind was finding some warm food to eat! Our trip came out to about 11 miles RT. I would say I wish we had gotten an earlier start but I can look back and say not making the lake was worth it (if we would have anyway) so that we were able to give a ride to someone who might not have been able to make it without the help.
I wrote more about our decision to turn around on my latest blog post, Reaching Our Turn Around Point, because as always there is more to the story.
Directions: From Darrington, drive south on the Mountain Loop Highway 9 miles to FR 23 (White Chuck River Rd.) and turn left. Continue for 5 .3 mile to the junction with FR 27 if possible. You cross a bridge over the river at 5 miles and there is a parking area and privy here. If you can continue, the junction with FR 27 is another 1/4 mile. There is a pullout at the junction or continue up FR 27 to the snow line or TH 2.5 miles up.
For more hikes and snowshoes on the Mountain Loop Highway, click HERE.
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